How Fast & Reliable Is Pain Relief from Acupuncture? Vast Difference Depends ...
The effectiveness of acupuncture millennia ago in China as described in Huangdi Neijing was a magic: the symptom relief happens the instant the needle is in and permanent cure eventually follows with certainty. Such instant efficacy was highly consistent and reliable. The instant effect happens like “The wind blows away cloud” (若风之吹云) as says in Lingshu 1 of Huangdi Neijing. Furthermore, no need to aggressively stab patients to induce “de-qi” sensation (which does nothing but torturing patients) as required in today's standardized acupuncture (TCM acupuncture).
Fast and Reliable: Ancient Needling
The magic efficacy of Neijing acupuncture is undoubtedly attested by a living fossil of Neijing acupuncture – Tung's acupuncture, which had been a secret family lineage (until 1970s). “Fast” and “reliable” are the two striking characters which can be used to depict the efficacy of the Neijing acupuncture.
Tung's acupuncture, which largely uses a technique called Miu-Ci 缪刺 from Neijing, has at least 80% success rate (immediate positive response rate) in achieving therapeutic effect, particularly in treating ailments with any unpleasant sensation as symptoms (the most common unpleasant sensation is pain).
In my clinic, I use the technique inspired by and developed from Miu Ci 缪刺 originating from Neijing, the immediate positive response rate is above 95%. Every day I see patients on the treatment table in my clinic who look at me and wow “are you a magician?”, and I humbly tell them I still have 5% cases in which my pricking failed to cause the patients to response no matter whatever I do. Btw, in my clinic, patients always lie on the table face up fully dressed (socks off) with sleeves and pants rolled up or wearing sleeveless shirts and short pants, but very rarely face down with their chest pressed against the table, and never have their back, hip, abdomen exposed (this is unnecessary), so they can always watch me working on their body and keep talking with me.
The Miracle in Neijing Acupuncture of Ancient China
The Neijing provided many clinical cases showing the magically effectiveness, for example:
For pain at lateral upper arm...prick middle and ring fingers at a spot close to nail root, pain will go away instantly for strong people, or within a couple of minutes for elders; always prick opposite side to the pain (臂外廉痛...刺手中指次指爪甲上...壮者立已, 老者有顷已, 左取右, 右取左)(SW 63).
For pain at back of head, neck or traps, prick small toe close to nail root, pain will go away instantly; if not, prick the area under lateral malleolus, pain will go away within the time needed to eat a meal; always prick opposite side to the pain (头项肩痛，刺足小指爪甲上,...立已，不已，刺外踝下...左取右, 右取左, 如食顷已).
For hernia-induced acute groin pain, prick big toe close to nail root; pain will go away instantly for men and within a couple of minutes for women; always prick opposite side to the pain (卒疝暴痛, 刺足大指爪甲上...男子立已, 女子有顷已, 左取右, 右取左)... the list of such magic cases goes on.
For toothache, if pricking the point (today's acupoint Li 4) on the Jing Mai vessel of Hand-Yangming did not work, then prick a blood vessel on the jaw which is connected to the teeth, pain will go away instantly (齿龋, 刺手阳明,不已, 刺其脉入齿中, 立已).
Today's Standardized Acupuncture: Flipping A Coin
In 1970s, a needle healing system called TCM acupuncture was introduced from China to the West and it has become a standardized modality in the West. From early 1990s, biomedical community in the West started to place TCM acupuncture on the test of the randomized, double-blind and controlled clinical trial (RCT) in order to make certain its efficacy. The results of the trial have been always disappointing.
The largest trial (n=1,162) conducted in Germany in 2001 – 2005 demonstrated that the responder rate of patients with low back pain was no more than 50% : 47.6% in the verum group, 44.2% in the sham group (Haake et al, 2007), meaning in every 10 patients there are 5 for whom acupuncture is useless. “Five hundred RCTs have been done to test acupuncture. If you count up the positive and negative results, it turns out to be fifty-fifty. It’s random, like flipping a coin”, says Ted Kaptchuk (Kaptchuk, Ted, 2002), one of the founders of American Chinese medicine, now professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School.
The more noteworthy is that the disappointing < 50% response rate in the above RCTs was NOT seen until after about 3 months of treatment (10 - 15 sessions at once per week), in sharp contrast to the almost always instant effectiveness of Neijing acupuncture.
Modern Time's Acupuncture in Boston, USA
If RCT trials could not give any reliable positive results, then how about acupuncture's efficacy seen in the practitioners' daily practice?
During 1991 - 2003, Linda Barnes, a medical anthropology professor of Boston University School of Med, interviewed 72 acupuncturists in Boston about how they evaluate the efficacy of their practice. The interview did not see any acupuncturist who had experienced prompt and wonderful effectiveness.
On the contrary, most of them advised their new patients “to plan for treatments for 6 to 8 weeks and, only then, to decide if acupuncture has worked for them”. Most practitioners agreed ...”they do not have to, for the patients to feel that healing has occurred.”
Acupuncturist Michael Hussin, a 5-Elements theory follower, flatly refuses to talk about curing people: .. if someone asks if I can get rid of their headaches, I say, “Here is my experience of headaches. I don’t know what will happen. People do get help.You will have to come in, and we’ll see what happens.” … I don’t talk about cures. ...some people talk about cures, but I think this does patients a disservice.
A Naive Question to TCM Doctors From Modern China
On Mar. 27, 2012, a question “How fast is pain relief from acupuncture? ” was posted on zeel.com, a New York-based on-line platform to connect patients to doctors. Eight practitioners from across the country (USA) responded.
One from Glendale, CA and another from Solana Beach, CA replied that pain relief would be almost always immediate. Great. It is supposed to be so in Neijing acupuncture. The remaining six responses, however, might be disappointing to the questioner patient.
The one from Winnetka, IL did not answer the question but only said “... every situation is unique”. The one from Orangeburg, NY responded: Acute conditions can usually be resolved in four to six treatments... chronic ones even longer. An answer not precisely hitting the point about “Pain Relief”.
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The most explicit answer came from Castle Rock, CO: “Usually about 40% of patients experience pain relief after the first treatment, another 40% experience pain relief after 8 treatments. The final 20% have mixed results.”
The responder from Atlanta, GA with the name showing a Chinese origin wrote: “Unlike Western medicine, Eastern alternative medicine is not a 'quick fix'... We usually suggest starting with a course of 10 treatments to see how the body responds and go from there”. This is exactly a concept prevailing in TCM community in China: “No quick fix, at least 10 sessions to start with”.
The most impressive response was from Rosemead, CA. It was impressive because the response was entirely irrelevant to the question but was an answer to the inquiry “May I get a detailed resume of yours?”
The detailed resume provided in that response presented a 36 years of experience with “the highest postgraduate medical degree in China and postdoctoral training at Medical University...a physician & professor at medical schools in both China & USA...use acupuncture, herbal medicine and Chinese massage to treat medical problems...” Apparently, this acupuncturist is a highly educated and experienced scholar doctor trained in the genuine and authentic TCM.
However, “How fast is pain relief from acupuncture? ” is a question just too naive in view of many highly experienced TCM doctors in China who do not consider the needling can be an independent therapy to treat anything without combination with herbs, tuina (Chinese style of massage), cupping, or guasha, etc. The TCM doctor from Rosemead, CA seemed to have just gently laughed the silly question off, never bothered to answer it.
Based on all 54 questions asked / answered by patients / acupuncturists across the country (the US), a review by the Editorial Staff of Zeel.com concluded (May 18, 2020) :
“Acupuncture is not for people seeking a quick fix.
“ In some cases conditions worsen before they get better, or there may be no effect.”
This is what a “randomly sampled” group of acupuncturists across America could, to the best of their knowledge, truthfully inform of their potential patients about the efficacy of the healing modality they learnt from TCM textbooks.
Here, can you image how disappointing this review is to the patients who had already learnt how fast and reliable the true Neijing acupuncture is?
Ancient Era's Confidence vs Modern Time's Diffidence
When you read Neijing, you can always feel intensely the strong confidence of the Chinese physicians in that era with the efficacy of their needling: if the symptom relief is not instant, you just have not done the job correctly. The Lingshu 1 says:
Disappointingly, 2000 years later today, “most practitioners agreed .. they do not have to, for the patients to feel that healing has occurred.” “[They] don’t know what will happen [when they treat patients] (Barnes L. 2005). What they are able to do is no more than flip a coin then pray.
What is wrong with the development of the last 2000 years of Acupuncture history?
References
Barnes, Linda, 2005, American Acupuncture and Efficacy: Meanings and Their Points of Insertion. MEDICAL ANTHROPOLOGY QUARTERLY, Vol. 19, Issue 3, pp. 239–266.
Haake M. et al, 2007, German Acupuncture Trials (GERAC) for chronic low back pain: randomized, multicenter, blinded, parallel-group trial with 3 groups Arch Intern Med . 2007 Sep 24;167(17):1892-8
How fast is pain relief from acupuncture? https://www.zeel.com/t/acupuncture/expert-answers
Huangdi Neijing, Linghsu 1: Nine Needles & 12 Yuan Points 九针十二原
Huangdi Neijing, Suwen 63: On Miuci 缪刺论
Kaptchuk, Ted, 2002, The Placebo Effect in Alternative Medicine. Ann Intern Med 2002 Jun 4;136(11):817-25
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